The Colonies, 1492-1750

by Reuben Gold Thwaites

48. The New England Colonists.

It will be remembered that the commercial company chartered by King James I. (1606) to colonize Virginia, as all of English America was then styled, consisted of two divisions,—the London (or South Virginia) Company, and the Plymouth (or North Virginia) Company. We have seen how the London Company planted a settlement at Jamestown, and what came of it. The Plymouth Company was not at first so successful. |The Popham colony.| In 1607, the same year that Jamestown was founded, the Plymouth people—urged thereto by two of their members, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of the port of Plymouth, and Sir John Popham, chief-justice of England—sent out a party of one hundred and twenty colonists to the mouth of the Kennebec, headed by George Popham, brother of Sir John; but the following winter was exceptionally severe, many died, among them Popham, and the survivors were glad of an opportunity to get back to England (1608).

Smith's voyage to New England.

In 1614 John Smith, after five years of quiet life in England, made a voyage to North Virginia as the agent and partner of some London merchants, and returned with a profitable cargo of fish and furs. The most notable result of his voyage, however, was the fact that he gave the title of New England to the northern coast, and upon many of the harbors he discovered, Prince Charles bestowed names of English seaports. During the next half-dozen years there were several voyages of exploration to New England, its fisheries became important, and some detailed knowledge of the coast was obtained; but its colonization was not advanced.

The new Plymouth charter (1620).

Chief among the patrons of these enterprises was Sir Ferdinando Gorges. In 1620 Gorges and his associates secured a new and independent charter for the Plymouth Company, usually known as the Council for New England, wherein that corporation was granted the country between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of latitude,—from about Long Branch, N. J., to the Bay of Chaleurs. The region received in this charter the name which Smith had bestowed upon it,—New England. To the company, consisting of forty patentees, was given the monopoly of trade within the grant, and its income was to be derived from the letting or selling of its exclusive rights to individual or corporate adventurers. It had power, also, both to establish and to govern colonies. But the enterprise lacked capital and popular support. Virginia, founded as an outlet for victims of economic distress in England, appeared to absorb all those who cared to devote either money or energy to the planting of America. The reorganized Plymouth Company would doubtless have waited many years for settlements upon its lands, had not aid come from an unexpected source.

Religious groups in England.

The persecution of a religious sect led to the permanent planting of New England. The English Protestants under Elizabeth may be roughly divided into several groups: (1) The great majority of the people, including most of the rich and titled, adhered to the Church of England; as the "establishment," or State religion, it retained much of the Catholic ritual and creed, but with many important omissions and modifications. (2) Besides the Catholics, few and oppressed, there was a distinct class who wished to stay the progress of the Reformation and more closely to follow Rome. (3) The Puritans sought to alter the forms of the church in the other direction, but they were themselves divided into two camps: (a) the conformists, who would go further than the establishment in purifying the State religion and in rejecting Romish forms, yet were content to remain and attempt their reforms within the folds of the Church; and (b) the dissenters, who had withdrawn from the Church of England and would have no communion with it. The dissenters were themselves divided: (1) there were those who wished to be ruled by elders, on the Presbyterian plan, such as had been introduced by Calvin and his followers in Switzerland and France, by Zwingli in Switzerland and Germany, and by John Knox in Scotland; then there were (2) the Independents, or Separatists, who would have each congregation self-governing in religious affairs,—a system in vogue in some parts of Germany. "Seeing they could not have the Word freely preached, and the sacraments administered without idolatrous gear, they concluded to break off from public churches, and separate in private houses." Sometimes the Separatists were called Brownists, after one of their prominent teachers, Robert Browne. The Presbyterians and Independents were alike few in number in Elizabeth's time; but as the result of persecution under James I., and the impossibility of obtaining concessions to the demand for reform, these sects steadily gained strength. The Independents in particular were harshly treated, so that many fled to Holland, where there was religious toleration for all; and from this branch of the Separatists came the Pilgrims, who first colonized New England.

49. Plymouth colonized (1620-1621).

The Scrooby congregation.